When it comes to motivating his teammates, Tom Brady was always one of the best. Apparently, though, his motivation wasn't just limited to fiery speeches. According to former Buccaneers offensive lineman Ali Marpet, Brady essentially bribed his teammates to play better during the quarterback's time in Tampa Bay.
Marpet revealed that information during an interview on the "Wam Bam" podcast. According to Marpet, the Buccaneers' ability to run a simple screen had gotten so "abysmal" that Brady felt like he had to step in, and that's when he apparently decided to start offering cash payments in order to motivate everyone to play better.
"[Brady] took our starting offensive line to the side and he's like, 'Hey, if you guys can get a screen to go for more than 15 yards, I will give you $1,000 cash each. That is for you guys; so every time that we get that, I will be happy to make that payment,'" Marpet said, via JoeBucsFan.com.
If you do the math there, that's an offer that's not cheap to make. There are five offensive linemen, which means that Brady would have to pay out at least $5,000 every time the Buccaneers ran a screen for at least 15 yards.
Not surprisingly, the linemen were thrilled with this offer.
"Are you kidding me? Like a little extra juice," Marpet said. "So those kinds of things [Tom did to motivate]."
According to Marpet, the Buccaneers ran multiple 15-yard screens over the rest of the season, which means Brady paid out at least $10,000, if not more.
"There were definitely multiple 15," Marpet said. "So those kinds of things. Again, Tom just knowing how guys are wired and what goes a long way and inspiring and getting the most out of his guys."
It's not clear when this happened, but Marpet was only teammates with Brady during the 2020 and 2021 seasons, so it was obviously one of those two years (Marpet started 29 games at left guard while playing with Brady and the offensive lineman went to the Pro Bowl in 2021).
The 2020 season would make a lot of sense for multiple reasons. As Joe Bucs Fan points out, a former Buccaneers player actually called the team out for their "atrocious" screen game in 2020 and if an outsider noticed how bad the screen game was, you can bet everyone inside the building was aware of how bad it was. Also, let's not forget the the Buccaneers struggled late in the season in 2020. The team was sitting at 7-5 heading into their Week 13 bye, but after that, they managed to run off eight straight wins on their way to a Super Bowl victory over Kansas City.
If this all happened in 2020, then the investment definitely paid off for Brady, who walked away with his seventh Lombardi Trophy.
